In September of 2015, I started writing and blogging regularly. It was immediately after I completed my Master’s Degree and prior to beginning my Doctoral Degree studies in January 2018. I wrote over sixty-five blog posts and spent two and a half years developing my voice, writing skills, and ideas around education, coaching, and leadership. In over eleven years of teaching and coaching, I’ve developed a reflective approach to all areas of my work, and my journey in blogging helped improve that process. It is in this reflective philosophy that I’ve decided to reignite my professional blog and website as an educator, coach, and leader; as I did in 2015, I’d like to outline my standards for the work in my blog and on my professional website:
Standard 1: Create a Space for Growth
The purpose of my blog and website is to create a space for my personal and professional growth as an educator, coach, and leader by reflecting on my experiences. The thoughtful reflections will foster continued growth around my beliefs as a leader.
Standard 2: Reach an Audience
In any type of writing, the author works to reach a specific audience, and my blog will focus on educators, teachers, coaches, and leaders. Through my experiences and ideas, I hope to guide others in creating change, improving their practice, or pondering a different perspective.
Standard 3: Keep it Concise
Our world wants ideas quickly and easily, so I want to keep my blogs short. One aspect of quality writing is conciseness, and I want each word to be meaningful. Short and concise also aligns with the professional blogs and articles that I read and enjoy weekly.
Standard 4: Start Conversation
Leadership is about starting and sustaining a conversation about what matters. Through these conversations, teachers, coaches, and leaders reflect on what happens in their own spaces in order to improve outcomes. I hope to start conversations with my colleagues in education, coaching, and teaching.
Standard 5: Visually Appealing
Most people enjoy visuals, quotations, media, and other visually appealing pieces in blogs. Through a creative approach, I’d like to experiment with various visuals and other media that correlate with my blog’s topics. The website also acts as a creative outlet for my personal and professional life.
Standard 6: Once a Week
We all fill our time with important tasks: family, teaching, coaching, and hobbies, among many other areas. So, in order to stay consistent with blogging, I’ll work to update it once a week, focusing on a topic that emerged in my work or professional reading, listening, and viewing during the week.
Standard 7: Develop My Voice
While I’ve written extensively as an academic (master’s thesis, doctoral dissertation), I want to continue developing my professional voice. Voice is a very complex and difficult topic to both teach and understand, yet it is one of the more important aspects of effective writing and leadership. Through my blog, I hope to refine my voice as a leader.
Standard 8: Professional Opportunities
Over the past three years, I’ve become increasingly interested in consulting work in writing, leadership, teaching, and coaching. Producing content that aligns with these areas opens myself up to potential professional opportunities as an entrepreneur and business owner.
Standard 9: Serve Others
First and foremost my blog is for me, but I do hope it serves others through ideas, thought, creativity, and curiosity. By keeping a blog, I can help others further develop or think critically about their own teaching, coaching, and leadership.
What are your principles for blogging and writing? Please share your ideas.